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A series of events brought to you by the great people at Imbibe and the K-W Craft Beer Club.

Quote:Craftoberfest is meant to be a space for our community to come together - it’s an opportunity for those who love craft beer to share that passion with each other and to spread the word. Great beer is meant to be shared!

Quote:Imbibe owner Bill McTavish and Kitchener-Waterloo Craft Beer Club founder Ryan Ward say they're looking to take the lager into their own hands with local alternatives to the Molson-dominated festhallen. The two say there's a lack of local options on tap at official Oktoberfest venues.

"The Oktoberfest scene right now is basically just Molson products," Ward told The Morning Edition on Friday. "With so many new craft breweries opening up, it would be nice to have an alternative for people who are into craft beers and to get people to try craft beers."

Ward said Craftoberfest will take a page from the original Oktoberfest celebration in Germany, which is a celebration of the local harvest.

"That's why we're trying to get all the local breweries to come up with German-style, Oktoberfest-inspired beers for the upcoming event," he said.

Craftoberfest not sanctioned by KW Oktoberfest

Craftoberfest will run concurrently with Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest from September 27 to October 17.

However, McTavish says the event is in no way affiliated with the official festival.

"They understand what we're doing," he said. "We can't be sanctioned by them because of some of their restrictions, but they're certainly not opposed to what we're doing."

Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest has a longstanding partnership with Molson Canadian, which has sponsored the festival for more than three decades and allows Molson to hold the exclusive rights to serve at Oktoberfest festival halls across Waterloo Region.

Molson monopoly a 'missed opportunity'

With an ever-growing number of craft breweries already operating or just starting up in Waterloo Region, Ward sees Molson's monopoly on official venues as a missed opportunity not only for local brewers, but beer drinkers as well.

"Just in the last year alone in Kitchener-Waterloo we've had two breweries that have opened, which is Block Three and Innocente," he said, adding two more breweries are set to open their doors in the region soon.

I think it'll take some time to gain that high profile. I was unable to attend the events that I wanted to go to due to prior commitments but I heard from a few friends who went that it was a really good time.

Sadly my guess is that the Molson sponsored event is in no rush to give it more press than it can get on it's own.

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Launched in August 2014, Waterloo Region Connected is an online community that brings together all the things that make Waterloo Region great. Waterloo Region Connected provides user-driven content fueled by a lively discussion forum covering topics like urban development, transportation projects, heritage issues, businesses and other issues of interest to those in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and the four Townships - North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich.